Freezer Paper Primer

There are lots of tutorials and how-to’s out there for freezer paper, but based on the quantity of questions I’ve gotten (email and real life), I decided to talk about it briefly.

Here’s what I’m talking about. It’s located by the plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Not everywhere carries it. I would say it’s difficult-ish to find. I even had to break down and go to WalMart to get some. A roll this size runs $6-7, but it will last you FOREVER.

Freezer paper is shiny and plastic-y on one side and plain paper on the other. The plastic coating will stick to fabric when it’s ironed, but can easily be peeled off.

You can use a number of different techniques to get your design onto your fabric. I’ve tried bleach, spray paint, fabric paint, and acrylic paint mixed with a textile medium. I like them all.

If your design has free floating details like the skull or letters, you’ll need to hang on to those pieces and reposition them within your design. The nice part about using pumpkin carving templates is that there aren’t any floating pieces.

And here’s a brief how-to!

You’ll need freezer paper, a design to trace, a pencil, an Exacto knife, and some sort of paint or bleach.

Trace the design onto your freezer paper. You can see through it pretty well:

(I had to put the knife there to get my camera to focus)

How much excess freezer paper you leave around the edges is kind of personal preference. I leave more when I use spray paint to protect the rest of the shirt.

Sit down with your Exacto knife and start cutting.

(There’s a navy cutting board underneath my cut out)

Position the freezer paper on your fabric and iron.

You’ll want to press and then lift and press some more as opposed to sliding the iron back and forth. Sliding it will catch on the details and rip them.

If you’re using paint that will bleed (pretty much anything but spray paint), you’ll want to stick a piece of cardboard inside the shirt now.

Then I went out to my garage…

and spray painted.

Let it dry for about 10 minutes and then peel the freezer paper off.

Finished product?

You can also cut freezer paper in your Cricut…think of the possibilities with THAT!

***Edit to add pics of the shirt after it’s been machine washed and dried (inside out). They should be click-able.***

***Edit part deux: I tried another shirt using Valspar spray paint and it was a disaster. Probably don’t use that kind.***

AMAZING… MY 8 year old son… aka Star Wars lover… would love this! P.S. LOVE YOUR BLOG NAME… AND THE MESSAGE JUST BELOW IT… and sometimes its crap! TO FUNNY! I am going to follow you too, I would love for you to follow Larsenloves.blogspot.com Jenn

thank you so much! i made one on thurs. to tell my family i was preggo. my son wore a shirt saying he had a secret on the front and on the back it said im goin to be a big brother. I found fabric paint worked really well too. And if you have cricket i found that alot easier then having to trace and cut.

Great tutorial! You're right, I guess great minds do think alike since I just posted about the technique too! Isn't it so crazy easy!?! I'm in love with this technique!-Sarah from Create Studiohttp://www.createstudio.blogspot.com

Thanks so much for including the picture of the football jersey!!! I looked everywhere yesterday for it. Turned out great! With 4 boys and football season in full swing might have to give this one a go! Thanks!!

Thanks so much for including the picture of the football jersey!!! I looked everywhere yesterday for it. Turned out great! With 4 boys and football season in full swing might have to give this one a go! Thanks!!

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Thanks and beswt of luck.

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Feel free to link to or feature (no more than one image, please) any tutorials on this site, as long as credit is given. Tutorials are for personal (non-commercial) use only. For more information, see the details of my copyright way down at the bottom of the page!